


like nothing

by masongrey



Series: pearlet one-shots [5]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: AU, First Meetings, Freckles, M/M, corsets, drag race doesn't exist, enjoy, here it is, hopeless metaphors, i tried a new writing style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 08:37:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4557963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masongrey/pseuds/masongrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Violet wears her pain eloquently and without complaint. </p><p>Pearl wears hers buried under a thick layer of careful indifference. </p><p>They meet. This happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like nothing

**Author's Note:**

> This is fiction, and none of the things I write about ever actually happen <3 thanks for reading ^3^

Violet craves a perpetual state of pain induced numbness. It’s a coping mechanism, a safety blanket. For what, she’s not sure.

By the end of the night, the sharp pulsing in her ribcage is nowhere to be felt, the creaking in her matchstick limbs cannot be heard and everything is soft and unfocused and blurry at the edges. It feels like static on a TV screen, like the mindless rushing of the wind. It feels like nothing. It feels beautiful.

She lives for pain so immense, so daring, so demanding, that the steady roar of it in her ears morphs gradually into a gentle buzz. The pain reverberates in her bones, jostling her joints ever so faintly.

Violet has never needed drugs to help her toe the line, but without the pain she is nothing.

Unlike most, she keeps her damage on the outside where it’s plain for all to see. She wears the pain like a badge of pride, eloquently and without complaint.

Pain is beauty and she has _always_ been the prettiest one.

Her life is a cycle of agony, of putting it on and taking it off. And, believe it or not, it’s always, always worse when she takes it off.

Because when the fantasy is gone, when the corset is un-cinched and the heels are discarded and the tape is torn away; when the lights flicker off and cigarette smoke is choking and the desperation leaks through and the power has faded, there is nothing left but Jason and some angry red scars.

…

When Matt was young and gangly and starry-eyed, he would spend all day connecting the dots with the freckles speckled across his arms.

He used to pretend that his body was a galaxy full of twinkling constellations just waiting to be discovered and named and cherished. It made him feel important, it made him feel mysterious, it made him feel beautiful.

He grew up. He’s still young, but he’s filled out, no longer gangly. The stars died in his eyes a long time ago. He’s lost his freckles, his sense of wonder. He got tattoos instead, trying to add some mystery, some importance, some beauty back to his skin. The piercing was a glittering afterthought. It caught his eye when he was leaving the tattoo parlor. He was feeling particularly careless that day.

His face is a perfect projection of nothing, years of harsh storms and abandonment and sleazy boyfriends have weathered his body into a shield for his mind.

Every night he paints Pearl on, and every morning he wipes her away. Pearl is beauty, Pearl is mystery, Pearl is important.

Pearl is his way of telling society that he’ll connect the fucking dots as long as he wants to.

…

Violet is new to this club. She can feel the other girls sizing her up out of the corners of their eyes. She’s chasing the numbness like she can’t live without it, trying to force the anxiety out of the pit of her stomach and into a locked vault of fear.

It’s all too easy to forget that you can feel afraid when most of the time you can’t seem to feel anything at all.

She needs someone to tighten this damn corset, sure though she is that she will regret this later. She needs to feel her heart in her throat and nothing else.

She ducks into the changing room. It’s dim, moldy and smells vaguely like stale beer, rat piss and weed. She takes a deep breath, stepping carefully over the threshold.

There’s only three girls in here, touching up their wigs and adding finishing swipes and dabs to their makeup. They look sullen and intimidating and wary all at once. Violet gulps, trying to hone her focus in on the raw spot near the back of her heel that is screaming for relief. She walks quickly past them, turning the bend in the row of mirrors and soft lights, only to set her eyes on the most beautiful person she has ever seen.

He has his back to her, all smooth, bronzed skin and lithe muscle.

He turns around and Violet’s mouth goes dry. He’s breathtaking, heart-shaking. His face is painted elaborately, swooping brows, slashes of eyeliner, a thick and unapologetic lip.

His messy swoop of dirty blonde hair, his strong jaw, his glinting nose ring.

He smirks when he catches her staring, and damn if Violet isn’t terrified and impressed that this gorgeous man is even allowed to exist. He’s got a cigarette tucked between his fingers and he presses it to his mouth, sucking the smoke into his mouth and breathing it out with a slow exhale. He blinks his low lidded eyes slowly. Once, twice. Violet bites her lip.

“Did you need something?” His voice is so slow and rough and gravelly and Violet’s heart is slamming into her lungs so hard she’s afraid she’ll stop breathing for good.

“Uh, um… no. Took a wrong turn. Sorry,” she clips out huffily, annoyed that she’s already given this boy the upper hand.

He smirks again and takes another drag from his cigarette, eyebrow climbing to the ceiling.

Violet turns on her heel and starts quickly for the door. _Pretentious bastard._

Fuck tightening her corset, her heart has climbed to her throat all on its own.

All night, no matter how hard she tries, she can’t seem to stop herself from looking for that glinting ring in the crowd.

She never finds it. Or the boy it’s attached to.

…

“Uh, um… no. Took a wrong turn. Sorry.”

Matt smiles toothily, puffing on his cigarette again as he stares unabashedly at this fucking perfect person that is staring at him like a deer caught in headlights.

This boy is dressed head to toe in a skintight latex catsuit, and he must have a twenty inch waist with that corset on. It hurts Matt just thinking about what it must be doing to his body. He’s wearing spiky black stilettos and his wig is long, straight and black and severe. There’s a flash of lust in his eyes, just a flash. Easily mistakable for something else. Anger, perhaps? Annoyance?

Matt takes another draw from his cigarette, trying to decide what to do about this boy. Just as quickly as he appears, he’s gone. Leaving nothing in his wake but a spritz of perfume and a deep stirring in Matt’s gut.

\- - -

The next time they meet is by the doors of a 7-11 in a shady part of town.

Jason wears his hood low, keeps his eyes downcast. He slouches his weight into his heels, crumples his shoulders forward, rubs gravel over his vocal chords. He isn’t shameful, just in no mood for a fight.

Matt is sitting on the curb by the door, a blunt quivering between his fingers.

Jason blinks. Matt grins lazily, recognition sparking in his eyes.

Jason is surprised that Matt recognizes him so easily. Matt’s eyes twinkle dangerously in the flickering streetlamp light.

“We’ve never been officially introduced. Matt,” he drags it out, the smoke hanging on to his every word.

“Violet. Violet Chachki.”

“I’ve seen you dance before. Burlesque, right?”

Jason gulps, ducks his head, shuffles away. A deep blush creeps onto his cheeks.

He’s not used to being flustered.

He barely watches the way Matt stumbles over to the bearded guy with the barbed wire tattoo. Barely notices the desperate way they cling together.

Barely notices how easily Matt climbs into his truck and rides away.

\- - -

Matt closes his eyes as the stranger leans over him, pushing into him with rough, stinging slaps of flesh against flesh.

Matt closes his eyes and thinks of VIOLET CHACHKI, drag performer and burlesque extraordinaire.

Matt closes his eyes and thinks of the sharp and beautiful bones of the creature behind the mask.

He wants to trace them with his fingertips. He wants to hold her in the palm of his hand. He wants his bedsheets to smell like her, thin and stinging and flowery. He wants to hoist her up to the highest window pane of his apartment and watch her eyes sparkle as she takes in the view.

But really, Matt knows, there isn’t much to see.

He prays on every constellation in the sky that he will see Violet again.

\- - -

The stars on Matt’s forearms align, they meet again.

It’s a different club this time, Violet’s home turf. Pearl is the new, shining, curiosity.

They skirt around each other warily, a lion stalking prey. Never mind which of them is the lion and which of them is the prey.

Their lips press together for a moment in the shadows of the dressing room, matte and thick against glazed and curved. Violet clenches her fists, forces herself away. The fire that ignites is tossed into the sea.

Violet’s mind is not still. She races, ripping holes into the fragile shell of her skull.

_faggot, get the fuck out, don’t want to see your face again, you heard your father, better leave soon, you won’t be missed, better off without you, leave fag, what did we do wrong, we failed you, you’re broken_

_so sorry_

_so, so, sorry_

Violet’s corset is cinched two inches beyond health, her chest spills out of it, an offering; her heart pounds and it manages to drown out the screeching in her head.

Apologies sickened her.

The thin sheen of sweat on her brilliantly marbled skin dazzles viewers.

Pearl is not immune. How could she be?

Pearl plucks her a flower, a dead and shriveled rose from an old headpiece of hers. It is dried to perfection, covered in a thin layer of gold.

It is presented with another harried kiss.

Violet Chachki is not impressed. Jason is blown back by it, terrified by it.

After her set, Pearl finds a petal of her flower on the ground, another by a moldy water fountain, another on top of a MAC pallet.

Pearl throws back her head and tosses shots like water. 

Violet goes home in tears, one broken petal clutched in her palm.

\- - -

Matt can’t quite keep her out of the corner of his mind. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to shake the feeling of her from his bones, the bitter taste of her lipstick from his mouth.

Every night he patterns in the constellations on stars he no longer can see, connecting all of his hopes together into one long, sloppily traced mess that snakes over his arms and down his chest and winds around his legs.

And every morning he scrubs away the thick lines and slashes.

And every night spent alone, he draws them in again.

\- - -

Violet lives in the numbness; she lets it destroy her, consume her.

Jason feels like tearing his hair out, screaming, throwing up, letting all of the blood drip slowly from his veins.

But Violet feels like nothing.

And it’s just the way she likes it.


End file.
